When the fourth round overshot the ship by fifty yards, Eddie closed his eyes, fearing that he knew what was transpiring on board the Resolve’s bridge at that very moment. Eager to draw first blood, thrilled but also anxious about taking the up-time ship into combat, the typically unflappable Dirck Simonszoon had given in to the temptation to show everyone in the fleet, and perhaps most particularly Eddie, that he was indeed the right commander for Resolve. And so, at the longest range yet attempted, he had started firing at the lumbering Spanish galleon. But since there was no ammunition to waste, he’d had only enough actual gunnery practice to familiarize himself with the inclinometer and the exacting nature of the deck-guns. So in his eagerness to prove himself quickly and decisively, he’d missed.
And then missed three more times. And no doubt felt that if he was proving anything to the rest of the fleet, it was that he did not belong in command of Resolve. After all, the young up-timer Cantrell rarely missed more than three times. Unfortunately, the subtleties of wave height, speed, target profile, and the differences between effective and practical range were probably not at the front of Simonszoon’s awareness where they belonged, but following behind his increasing frustration and realization that he had engaged the enemy too soon. And even further behind that thought was any latent cognizance that Eddie and Pros Mund had made it look so easy because when they fired, they had always enjoyed the advantages of optimal sea conditions, close range, and significant training.
No doubt Rik Bjelke was trying to provide a patient voice of experience, but Simonszoon, for all his many intellectual virtues, was also a proud man who had never, it was said, encountered the situation that he could not handle. As uncomfortable as the fifth and sixth misses were to watch from the deck of the Intrepid, Eddie could only imagine the torture of suppressed counsel and soaring frustration that predominated upon the bridge of Resolve.
The Resolve’s guns stilled after the sixth miss and, soon after, a prodigious increase of smoke started pouring out her stack. The cruiser jumped forward at what must have been full steam, bearing down upon the Spaniards at almost thirteen knots, her prow slicing through the seas so sharply and powerfully that she was less susceptible to the chop. At eleven hundred yards from the Spaniard, her forward mount fired again, missed long by only fifteen yards, and then the rear mount put a solid shell through the galleon’s stern windows.
There was no discernible response from the Spaniard other than a slight loss of speed. Within forty seconds, the Resolve’s forward eight-inch rifle spoke again, and this time, an explosive shell blasted a raging furrow three-quarters of the way across the galleon’s quarter deck. Fires sprang up in several places, and the ship sheered sharply to starboard, losing way.
Showing the tactical aptitudes that made him such an excellent commander in even these unfamiliar circumstances, Simonszoon immediately ignored that crippled ship, understanding she would not be able to keep up with her fleet and was therefore no longer a threat. Closing to nine hundred yards with his next target, Simonszoon began firing again, but this time, more slowly and steadily. This time, he was probably taking more time to gauge swells, make sure he kept his course and speed rock steady while the gunners adjusted their firing solution, and was listening to the advice of Rik Bjelke. The forward mount’s second shot fell just short of the next galleon’s prow and the third struck her dead amidships in the gun deck closest to the waterline.
At this range, the impact looked simply like a puff of dust. Seen through Eddie’s binoculars, it would have been a split-second tornado of shattered strakes, planking, and gunners. A moment later, secondary explosions started erupting from within the ship. One sent out a brief flicker of orange flame, hastily superseded by a vast plume of gray smoke. While her magazine did not go up, fires built rapidly in her lower decks and she, too, lost speed and heading.
As Simonszoon shifted course to bring his cruiser closer to a third target, Svantner muttered, “Commander, two points off the port bow: patache breaking back in toward Resolve.”
Eddie shifted his glasses and saw the Spaniard in question. She had been one of the half dozen lighter fore-and-aft rigged ships that had scattered like startled doves at the white-waked approach of the Resolve. Since then, she had slowly, casually reversed course, and was now angling in toward the lead USE ship. Behind that patache, Eddie saw two more sails slowly tilting over in the same direction, the ships beneath them heeling over into a close-reach to double back in a way that the square-rigged galleons of the Spanish fleet could not.